


The Ghost and His Keeper

by Uncontinuous (nights_fang)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, M/M, Possible pyschological issues, Violence - Canon Typical, mentions of torture, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nights_fang/pseuds/Uncontinuous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam gets out of Hell with no memories of how it happened. He won't question it though. No use in questioning a good thing. Instead, he's going to go right back to trying to get his life on track and leading as normal a life as possible. Except, since for some reason, the Universe hates him, he ends up being haunted. By Michael.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Supernatural. It belong to Eric Kripke and Sera Gamble.

 

There is a story, and it goes like this:  
  
Once upon a time there was a boy and a ghost.  
  
They were cursed and they were in love.  
  
There was no happy ending.  
  
It was, needless to say, a recipe for tragedy.  
  
But then, that would be oversimplifying things, wouldn't it?  
  
  


-x-x-x-

  
  
  
  
  
Adam wakes up and he's not in Hell any more.  
  
It's been weeks, possibly nearing _months_ now, but the fact still hasn't set in. The novelty has yet to wear off. He thinks it won't wear off for a long time, and honestly no one can blame him for it. He'd been in hell for how long? Stuck in there, watching as Sam left while he was destined to stay with two furious archangels. Part of him still expects to find himself back there, whenever he opens his eyes.  
  
Back in the Cage, with no escape, and no future.  
  
He still doesn't know how he got out. One moment he was _there_ , and the next _here_. There had been no one to tell him why, nothing. Just the photographs of John, Kate, and him above the fire-place of his old house in Windom, the familiar faded walls and wooden floor to greet him.  
  
Adam wakes up and he's not in Hell any more. He's _home_.  
  
And fuck if he knows how he got there, but he isn't asking questions.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Being home is easy and it isn't. Adam didn't think he'd have mixed feelings about the whole thing, but he does. Sure he isn't in Hell any more, and he is always going to celebrate that, but the house itself has memories too many dark memories of his first last moments. It's odd and not right, and yet at the same time it is.  
  
There are good days – not the sunshine and roses kind because Adam's never had that kind of life, and he knows after what he's been through he'll never have that kind of life. No, the good days are the days when nothing happens, and he loves it. He gets some restoration work done on the house, makes a significant dent in it and feels the comforting ache of overused muscles of after a long day. He naps in the sunlight coming through a broken window he's not yet fixed and later on through the new open ones, in the afternoon. He has too much coffee, smokes fewer cigarettes, even _reads_ , and ends his days when Nanny from across the street comes over with dinner. And later when he gets a laptop, she brings DVDs of old movies for them to watch together.  
  
There are neutral days, when something does happen, this and that, things he can sometimes ignore and sometimes cannot. When Hell seems just a little closer to the surface. Or the ghouls seem to be inching towards the present rather than the past where they belong. Where something in the house, feels undeniably _off_ and he can't put his finger on what it exactly is. When if he isn't bogged down by paranormal worries, it's the mundane ones. Like having to deal with cashing in Mom's insurance, breaking his college fund, and still needing money to restore the house. About worrying how he'll pay the bills, and how he'll manage working three jobs instead of two. About how he's never going to college again and achieving his mom's and his dream of becoming a doctor. But they're still manageable.  
  
At the end of the day, he can deal with it. He has Nanny, Kristin's grandmother and the closest thing he has to family left from across the street. She grounds him. And when she's not enough, he has other ways. He's old enough to buy alcohol and cigarettes now, and even if he wasn't he could pester Nanny to bring some from her stash. (The only problem with that would be, she'd regulate him and not let him get drunk, and she doesn't like it when he smokes, but that's okay too, because it makes him feel like he's eight when he thought everything would work out fine when he grew up.)  
  
But then there are the bad days. Days when that off kilter feeling creeps through his bones and deeper than the marrow until it's fitting its talons into the cracks along his soul, and make it hard to just _be_. Days when he hallucinates. Days when the house feels too sinister, and dark and he can see blood on the wallpaper and scratches on the floor, despite the fact that he's fixed those up. Days when he feels like too much light and air, and not in control of his body to even do anything about it. Days when he feels like he's not alone in the house with only his memories, but something else. These are the days when Hell and the ghouls lurk right behind his eyes, where he feels wrong and alien in his skin. That's there's something inside him that's trying to claw it's way out. These are the days, he can't stand his own shadow or reflection because he doesn't feel human any more, and he doesn't want to look and see proof of it.  
  
These are the days when Nanny being Nanny and made of everything nice and good in this world, uses her “mom” senses (which are thousand times better than Spidey senses) and bakes him something.  
  
The bad days unfortunately, outnumber the good and even neutral days far too often.  
  
But if Adam is anything, he's a stubborn ass who will fucking fight tooth and nail for something he wants. He doesn't want to go back to how he was before his life went to shit. He knows that can't happen any more, he won't fool himself into thinking it will. But, he doesn't just want to be, either. He wants to _live_ again, not normal but something close to as he can manage it. Being is the first step to that. And even if he has to the one step forward three steps back dance, he'll keep doing it and reverse the thing through the sheer force of his will.  
  
Hey he managed to keep himself from crumbling to dust in Hell. This is relatively easier.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Adam doesn't count the passing of time. It's not that he does this on purpose, it's just can't keep track of time well any longer. It's a side effect from his stay in Hell. Time blurs, and ebbs and moves through him and he feels stagnant.  
  
It's getting a little better these days, but not a lot.  
  
He counts the days thanks to Nanny. Nanny who tells him when to pay what bill, when to go do his bank work, when he has to go to work, because he's even bad at _that_. Nanny who comes over early in the morning on his birthday and spends the whole day filling up the house with the smell of the birthday banquet she's cooking for him. Nanny who's on the last years of life herself, and probably tries to make every grain of sand left in the hourglass of her life _count_. Nanny who is like Mom and _lives_ instead of _being_ , and makes him believe that he can too.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
There's something off about the house since he came back. It's not to do with the memories of the ghouls. It's not his mind playing tricks on him, even though he initially thought it was. It's something to do with the house itself. Adam doesn't know how he knows, but he knows. So does Nanny. So does the rest of the town come to think of it, seeing as he's heard quite a few murmurs about it, when people think he's not listening.  
  
The townspeople rarely come over, even the delivery people.  
  
Nanny (whose middle name might as well be Awesome McFearless) comes over more often when he mentions the feeling.  
  
Adam for the most part of it, ignores it, until the feeling goes away, or fades enough to not bother him. It should worry him, but the thing is: this is his house.  
  
This is his _home_.  
  
If anything is going away, it's the paranoia and bad feelings, not Adam.  
  
Besides, he feels _safe_ here.  
  
  


-x-x-x-

  
  
  
  
  
When it happens, when it finally comes out, it goes like this:  
  
Nanny is over again, having made him dinner. She's retelling him the story of her old holiday with Kate, when they went to a beach resort. It's one of Adam's favourite anecdotes. His mother always grumbled about it good naturedly, whenever she found out that Nanny had retold the story, and it'd always made him laugh, even though back then he hadn't understood all of the jokes. Though once he was old enough that he did, it did become a whole deal funnier. Mom even threatened to ground him once when he'd teased her a little too much about it.  
  
It's just as Nanny's narrating the incident with the cocktails, hands gesturing animatedly, when she goes stock still, her eyes widen, staring just to the right off the stove. Adam worriedly turns around just to see what it is, before he feels like molten lava has run down his spine. There's an outline of a man there, tall and lanky, glaring at them with the most piercing grey-blue eyes Adam has ever seen while holding something. What it is, Adam doesn't know, but it must be dangerous or something to worry about because Nanny's strong grip closes around his wrist and she urgently tugs him outside before he can react. It's probably a good thing because by the time they are out in the fresh air, Adam can feel something like a panic attack coming on.  
  
“That's it boy, you're not staying there tonight,” Nanny says and goes on about other things, like how she's been suspicious about this for a while and tonight it's been confirmed. About how they'll go to a priest in the morning to do something about it. About how he's staying with her until whatever it is that's in his house in out. But Adam ends up tuning her out while struggling to breathe. The memory of those eyes glaring at him are burned into his brain, and seem to keep staring at him from inside his own head, while the rest of his mind seems to be on auto-repeat.  
  
 _There's something in his house. In his own fucking home. And it's fucking been there all this time._  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Adam spends the night panicking and mentally repeating the mantra of: _There's something in my house._  
  
Nanny spends the night calming his down, until the sheer mental exhaustion catches up with him and ends up falling asleep on her lap.  
  
They go to a church the very next morning, and Adam bites his nails down to stubs hoping beyond hope that the priest can do something, because well he should know right? The priest, however, doesn't believe him, thinks Adam is seeing things and Nanny is senile. Adam spends the ride back alternating between wanting to go right back and punch the man, and shaking in the passenger seat of his old car while Nanny drives and hums Sinatra in an effort to calm him down.  
  
Then she forces him to stay over until they do something about whatever the fuck it is, in his house. Adam agrees until cold dread spreads through him at the stray thought of the thing following him to her house and harming her. But when he tries to bolt, she pulls something right out of his mom's play book and threatens to brain him with a spatula.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Adam debates calling Hunters, before dismissing that thought, because yeah, _no_. Hunters mean Sam and Dean and that is not a grave he wishes to dig up. Never. _Ever_.  
  
So he turns to the internet. And libraries.  
  
Neither of them are any help at all.  
  
It's primarily and laughably suspect information when he doesn't stumble onto a Twilight, Paranormal romance fantasy, Harry Potter, or 'witchcraft' – which seems more like the new housewives version or knitting or something – site. (Seriously, how many are there? ) He's not sure how rock-salt would work, or any kind of herbs or seasoning. They're for fucking cooking. What is he trying to get rid of a ghost, or do some weird exotic cooking? Is he supposed to be wooing it or maybe get rid of the thing by bribing it with food? Maybe it's food that tastes horrible. The eternal way to get something out of horror movies and stories out of your life is through it's abnormal tummy.  
  
Seriously, _salt and herbs and seasoning_. It's the most stupidest thing he's ever heard off.  
  
He's all for the iron horseshoe theory though. He remembers Sam mentioning something about iron, so it probably has some merit. (And this might be the only time he'll ever be grateful for even thinking of his asshole older half brother Sam.) When he mentions it Nanny says she might have one, tells him not to ask why – which means that when this is over and things are back to normal, she'll get out the good wine and tell him a story he's never heard and they'll laugh for hours over it, and it will be fantastic – and starts ransacking her attic for it.  
  
Then there's those weird Ghostbusters rip off web series Nanny finds. It only catches his attention because they mention Winchesters. Dean and Sam to be specific, and how weird a coincidence is that? He's still a little doubtful about some of the things, but considering the names mentioned, it's worth a shot. It's probably the closest he'll get to having the efficiency of a Hunter without having to actually involve the fuckers and hence draw a nice red bullseye at himself.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
He chooses a day when he knows Nanny will be out for her monthly tests and hospital check up, and not able to follow him.  
  
He barely makes it two steps in before the front door closes with a slam, and he's thrown against the far wall. His head snaps back against it with a sickening crack, and Adam feels woozy, and faint. He just hopes he isn't bleeding he thinks as his vision begins to blur and fade. He's suddenly very glad he didn't bring Nanny.  
  
 _So much for all the herbs and seasoning. They did jack squat._  
  
The last thing he sees before he passes out are those piercing grey-blue eyes close up, finding them familiar.  
  
  


 


	2. Chapter 2

  
Adam dreams he's burning up, _dying_ , except he isn't.  
  
And someone is calling out for him.  
  
Someone is saying sorry.  
  
  


-x-x-x-

  
  
  
  
  
He wakes up thankfully not in a crypt or coffin or even his basement like he was expecting, or on his living room floor, which would make more sense. No, instead he wakes up in his bed, when it's late evening outside, to the room painted in gold and red, and a grey see through form straddling him. The thing's grey-blue eyes are doing that weird soul stare at him. It feels heavy enough to be a real man straddling him.  
  
Also, Adam thinks he might have a concussion which yeah, brilliant.  
  
“ _Adam,_ ” the thing hisses, its face caught in this weird scowl, looking like a cross between annoyance and concern. And even though it's just a hiss, something about the voice hits Adam hard. Something inexplicably _other_. It's deep and like tribal drums resonating right in his soul, and so achingly familiar, and it scares Adam.  
  
Adam knows that voice.  
  
Michael spoke like that.  
  
Well, _Fuck_.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Adam runs the moment he gets a chance too. He's not sure how far he can make it but he'll try.  
  
“ _Adam_ ,” Michael calls after him gliding through the house, until he doesn't. Until he's right in front of Adam and corners him into a wall. “ _Listen to me_ ,” Michael hisses making the beat seems urgent and frantic, but Adam doesn't listen. He _can't_ afford too.  
  
Because this is Michael, and angel who was supposed to be good, and yet a filthy liar. Who promised Adam his world back. Who _used_ Adam. Who dragged him down to that part of hell beyond the screams where the insanity sunk in and tried to take away everything of _Adam_ that was left. Michael who burrowed into his soul to protect himself. Because Michael's supposed to be in Hell stuck in the Cage with Lucifer. He isn't supposed to be here ruining Adam's third chance at life. He isn't supposed to be _haunting_ Adam's home.  
  
Something flips inside Adam, raw and instinctual and maybe a residual of days spent twisting mutating in the Cage he likes to deny exists, and he pushes past without even knowing how, dives for his bag and flings the first thing that comes out of it – the salt – at Michael. Whatever it is works, and Michael poofs, and Adam stays on the floor shocked and just trying to digest the information.  
  
  


-x-x-x-

  
  
  
  
  
The thing – _ghost_ in his house is Michael. _Michael_.  
  
Michael is fucking _haunting_ him.  
  
Adam is not going to let that happen. He's not losing to Michael a second time. He's not letting Michael invade his life a second time. And this isn't just his life, it's his _home_. It's his mother's sanctuary. Her hidey hole from the rest of the world, and he can't let Michael ruin it.  
  
So, Adam does what he's best at doing. He comes up with a plan, and starts working at it with the same single minded focus that's was responsible for him making his house habitable after just a few months on his own. What got him his full ride to University.  
  
He starts taking those silly herbs seriously, and uses it. Lines places with rock salt, sprinkles Holy Water everywhere, hangs up the iron horseshoe over his bedroom door. And it works. It's slow, it's tedious, it's definitely dangerous, but Adam is stubborn. He's decided that he's going to squeeze Michael out of this house, and he fucking swears to Michael's supposedly omnipresent douchebag dad, he will do it.  
  
It takes a long time, maybe over a month, maybe over two. Adam keeps to a systematic schedule, slowly pushing Michael away from one room after another. It's hard to do without letting Michael notice exactly what he's doing. He has to make it seem random.  
  
Containing Michael isn't easy. Michael is a tricky fucker. He plays dirty.  
  
Michael fights back. The few times Adam catches a glimpse of him, looks livid. He shifts things, moves through cracks in the salt lines, using other ways to break the salt lines before Adam can replace them. He snarls, loud enough for it to echo in the house and resonate deeper than Adam's bones leaving him shaking and panting for breath.  
  
Adam plays _dirtier_.  
  
It's a war and they both know it.  
  
It's a war that Adam is going to win.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
He finally manages to contain Michael to the basement, the only place in the house where Adam doesn't go at all. Michael snarls and snarls, and yells and screams for Adam, loud and hard and primal. It resonates within Adam, leaving him shaking and gasping for breath, and Adam decidedly ignores him, pretends that he doesn't exist, that what he's doing isn't affecting him.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
He calls over Nanny for a celebratory dinner once he's completely sure that Michael is safely contained in the basement. He cooks his best meal, and tells Nanny to break out the good wine. They toast. He sees her off to her home when they're done, even though she tries to push him off.  
  
Because of the fact that Adam's life is probably a great big cosmic reality TV the peace as Adam hoped it would doesn't last forever. It doesn't even last a few days. He comes back home from dropping Nanny off after their 'I'm sort of ghost free' celebration to Michael's grey blue-eyes boring holes into him, instead of being confined to the basement like he should be. Before Adam barely has a chance to react before Michael's ethereal form is hauling him off.  
  
“Stay quiet, they're here again.” Michael hisses, holding onto him harder when he struggles and tries to break free of the ghost's grip. Without explaining further, drags him into the kitchen. As he's being dragged, out of the corner of his eyes, Adam catches a glimpse of something moving. Pays attention for the first time at the high pitched ringing coming from all around him. It rightly freaks him out, wondering how he hadn't noticed something so obvious before.  
  
Adam knows that ringing. It sounds like angels.  
  
There are _angels_ in his house.  
  
When Adam gets his bearing back from the revelation, he realizes Michael has a knife in his hand. He's pointing it at Adam, looking worried and apologetic. Adam doesn't even manage to get a word out before Michael's pinning him to the wall clamping a ghostly hand over his mouth, and making a slash on his index finger. He screams, through the hand on his mouth, and hears a crash in the living room. Hears them coming towards the kitchen where Michael has him pinned. Michael cuts him twice again, one gash in his middle finger, and one on his ring. Then gripping his wrist enough to hurt, he uses Adam's bleeding fingers to draw on the tiles. It's some weird symbol, that Adam finds looking vaguely familiar, even though he can't place why.  
  
The ringing is getting closer, painful to listen too, and making Adam feel light headed with it. Adam knows they're almost there. He only catches a glimpse of them. Four, three men and woman, all wearing black suits, blades at the ready, when Michael takes his bleeding hand and slams it dead centre of the symbol with bruising force. Adam winces with the pain, can see the tile crack, before all he can see is blinding white light, and all he can hear is that ringing get loud enough making his ears hurt and his head feel like it's about to come apart, and feel too much pressure making it hard to breathe, feeling like he's being squeezed into a point. And it feels like something is trying to claw it's way out of him from the inside, there's too much pain to bear, and he just wants it to stop, but it just keeps going on and on.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Adam doesn't know when it's over, except it is. He slumps against the tile, and lets out a choked sob.  
  
“What was that about?” Adam finds his voice asking hoarsely. He doesn't even know why he's asking other than the fact that it's something he'd do. His throat feels raw and abused, as if he's been screaming. Maybe he was. He's yet to open his eyes, they feel too heavy and he's half terrified of what he'll see if he does. “Those were angels, weren't they? Why were they here? Why are you out? Aren't you supposed to be in the basement? I know I'd trapped you in there. How did you break out?”  
  
He's babbling, he knows. It's thanks to the sheer blind panic engulfing him.  
  
“ _Adam. Adam!_ ” It's just one word, one that Adam is used too, coming from Michael. But he's always angry when he calls Adam. Now, Michael just sounds tired, and worried.  
  
Adam opens his eyes. He realizes that he's still bleeding, and the tile is cracked when Michael had slammed his wrist onto it. His wrist is obviously broken.  
  
“ _Adam_ ,” he says it again, like it's the only word he can say. Except this time it comes out something like a relieved exhale. Michael is pressing his ghostly form close in to Adam, grey blue eyes worried and sincere, and almost hypnotizing. Adam can't seem to look away from them.  
  
“Why?” Adam finds himself asking again. He's not even sure what he means with that question. Why is this happening? Why were angels here? Why did they want to be here? Why was Michael haunting him? Why did Michael help him? Why was this happening to Adam? Why couldn't he be left in peace?  
  
Michael's gaze softens; and when he speaks his voice doesn't make Adam's head hurt. “ _You still don't remember,_ ” it sounds sad and, resigned. “ _Maybe it's better that way._ ”  
  
“What?”  
  
“ _Angels. They were here again. They've been scouting this place for a while. Something happened. I don't know what, but it's happened, and they know you're out. They know we're out._ ”  
  
“What? Why?” Adam feels himself asking again, even though it's stupid, because everything is a jumble and nothing makes sense. His head hurts, his hand hurts, _everything_ hurts.  
  
Michael sighs, his expression seeming to echo Adam's own pain. Adam never paid attention to it before because he was deliberately ignoring Michael when not trying to exorcise him from the house, but now that he is... it's fucking weird to watch. The light shifts through him like a ripple, whenever he moves. The lines on his forehead crease more in worry. “ _We'll talk later. You should rest first. They won't be coming back soon, so we'll be safe for a while._ ”  
  
Rest. Yeah sleep sounds good. It'd do him good too. He wants too, but there are still too many questions of the 'what, why, how, when, where,' variety. And he doesn't miss how Michael keeps saying “we” like they're a team. Hasn't missed Michael's line of ' _you don't remember_ ' and how sad he'd sounded.  
  
Michael sighs again, as if he knows what's going on through Adam's mind. Adam might be a little hypnotized by the way it looks in the kitchen lights.  
  
“ _Come on. I'll explain when you're tucked in._ ” And Michael says it like it's the most normal thing in the world. Like they do this all the time, and it's so freaking weird, because this is Michael. Michael the archangel who fucked up Adam's life. Michael who's haunting him, whom Adam tried to exorcise from his house. Michael who's know apparently talking about tucking Adam in and even in his tired and worried state, he can't wrap his head around how strange this is.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
For reasons he doesn't really understand, and he'll probably hate himself in the morning, after kicking himself in the head for even doing this, he actually _listens_ to Michael. He stumbles to the couch, because he's too tired to make it upstairs to his room. Michael doesn't help him, says he can't with the saddest expression ever, murmuring something about using up all his energy, just to haul Adam to the kitchen and get him to use the banishing sigil.  
  
Michael hovers by the couch as Adam flops ungracefully onto it, letting his legs hang off the armrest. After a moment Michael starts talking.  
  
He doesn't even know when he falls asleep. Michael is still talking, when he nods off.  
  
Adam dreams the same dream he's been having since he got out of the Cage. Of white. Of someone desperately calling out for him, saying sorry. And it _hurts_. It hurts to hear that voice so wounded and wrecked and Adam wants to reach out to it, curl around it, tell it that things will be fine. But he wakes up instead.  
  
When he wakes up again it's still dark outside, and Michael is hovering by the window.  
  
Adam panics immediately, falling of the couch and nearly misses braining himself on the coffee table, in his haste to get away and go for the holy water or salt. It takes a few moments to remember the events of the previous night.  
  
Angels coming here, for him. For them. The noise. The pain. The migraine. Michael _helping_ him. Michael hauling him into the kitchen, and slashing his fingers to use his blood, and nearly breaking his wrist for a banishing sigil. Michael's voice, sad and resigned, as he murmured ' _you don't remember_.' Michael convincing him to get some rest first.  
  
His wrist, the blood. He'd not done anything about that. He hadn't applied a splint for his wrist, or even cleaned the cuts, like he should have. Adam stares up at his hand which is... fine. It's absolutely fine. Baby soft, and perfect like last night never happened at all.  
  
When he looks away from his hand, Michael is hovering over him, worry back in those grey-blue eyes. It's an odd look. It should scare him, it does scare him but it feels oddly comforting and right and fuck Adam's head hurts just thinking about it.  
  
“My hand is fine. Why is my hand fine? It should be busted up.” Adam blabs out instead, because he doesn't want to think about what that look means. Or what Michael is trying to make it mean. “Explain. Everything.”  
  
Michael sighs again, the moonlight coming in from the windows rippling through his ethereal form. “You don't remember,” he says again, and it almost sounds wounded. But then he nods, looking like this is all he's been wanting to do from day one, and starts talking again.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
As it turns out explaining everything is exactly what the archangel has been wanting to do since day one. At least that's what he says.  
  
This is how it goes:  
  
They got out of the Cage, Michael doesn't know how – though Adam doubts that because there's something about the way Michael says it like he's omitting something, and they both ended up here. He doesn't know how that happened, and Adam doesn't believe him because there's this uncomfortable humming coming from inside him that makes him feel like how he does when he's lying, amplified. (And holy fuck, he can _tell_ when Michael is lying.) Except they both got out wrong. Adam got out with Michael's Grace. And Michael's not an archangel any more. He's a ghost. A normal _human_ ghost. Again, he doesn't know how and why, and this time Adam knows that's the truth. He's been here from the day Adam found himself here. Just too weak to manifest himself until recently. And he isn't haunting Adam because he wants too. He's haunting Adam because he's _bound_ to Adam, probably because he's housing Michael's Grace. But Adam somehow managed to transfer the binding to the house.  
  
 _You were my Cage, and now this is my Cage_ , is how Michael puts it, and he doesn't even sound angry about it. Adam can't understand why, Michael should sound angry. He should sound livid, but he seems calm about it. Accepting. Michael doesn't even know why it's happened, just that it has and that they're stuck this way, here, for however knows long.  
  
As for the angels, they've been snooping around for a while. They're not joined or tied to Heaven any more. It's to do with something happening in Heaven. Michael doesn't know what exactly. He doesn't even remember when he first realized it, but that's when he'd started manifesting himself so that he could warn Adam. Until then he'd been completely content to stay out of Adam's way. _I'd caused you enough turmoil, you didn't need more. You looked happy_ , is what Michael says when Adam raises a disbelieving eyebrow at that, but Adam doesn't question it like he should. Doesn't scoff or make any sarcastic comment. He feels too tired to do so, with the weight of all the new information on his shoulders.  
  
He still takes most of the information with a pinch of salt, and he's sure that Michael's not telling him the whole truth, but still so far whatever Michael has told him doesn't sound like a lie, doesn't feel like a lie.  
  
“So what do we do now?” he asks when everything is finally out.  
  
“Survive. Whatever they want us for, it should blow over soon enough, but we won't take chances. We'll fortify the house. If they come again, I'll warn you, I'll handle it. Trust me.”  
  
“Okay,” Adam says, taking a shaky breath. It's asking a lot to trust Michael again, after their past, but there's this nagging something that makes him want to believe the former archangel, so he gives in. It's not like he has another choice. If he's bound to Michael, and if angels are after him, as much as he hates to admit it, Michael is his best bet. Michael is a tool he can make use off. “Okay.”  
  
“You know,” Michael says after a moment, “I _am_ sorry. For everything.” And it's the truth again, and Adam wants to say _fuck you_ because he has every reason to say it. Michael's invaded his life again, and Adam can do nothing but deal with it, and it's not even fucking fair.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

It takes a while, but they fall into a sort of routine after that.  
  
They make a plan. Many plans actually. Michael hovers around teaching Adam how to draw the sigils until he can do them in his sleep. They argue over where to to place the sigils, argue over plans for the event that the angels do break in. They discuss alternatives. They argue over the why. Michael still says he doesn't know, but Adam knows he's lying. He can feel it in his bones, but Michael doesn't budge.  
  
Adam starts researching about their 'condition' as he takes to calling it. Michael scoffs and doesn't help, until Adam nags him into it.  
  
Nanny still comes over, bringing dinner, and Michael makes himself scarce during these moments. Gives Adam these moments of normalcy after the fucking shit-storm he's brought back again into Adam's life by just existing. On some level, Adam is thankful for it. Thankful that he at least gets this one comfort.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
“I like this music.” Michael says manifesting himself near Adam while Adam stirs the soup. It's definitely sarcastic, but Adam doesn't care. It's been a long day, longer than normal, and he's spent a lot of extra time in the library, and he thinks he's earned the right to listen to ABBA. Besides this is _his_ house.  
  
“Of course you do. It's ABBA.” Adam replies. “Only people with no fun in their soul hate ABBA.”  
  
“You are a ridiculous human, Adam Milligan.”  
  
Adam lets it slide, because he has more important things on his mind. “I found something in the library today. I know, I know, you hate it and most of the stuff there is balls,” Adam says looking at the expression on Michael's face, taking a moment to realise that yes this is his life, he's living with Michael and he can understand his _expressions_ , before going on. “But, there's this book about soul switching between creatures of the night thing? Weird folklore, but it sounded like us. I checked it out just in case. It's in my bag.”  
  
Michael nods and goes off to extract the book and read it, complete with odd condescending snorts, and grumbling about how much humans get wrong. It's become a routine for them. Adam will find something he thinks might help with their situation, Michael will go through it and give the final verdict. So far all have been negatives.  
  
Then he goes very silent for a long time, which is generally unusual.  
  
“So? Anything to do with us?” Adam asks hopefully, pouring himself a bowl of soup.  
  
Apparently, the thing turns out to be a bust, because while it is true, it's the fancier description of a body switching spell, which, balls. He's back to ground zero.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
One of Adam's favourite things to discuss with Michael, when he's not trying to figure out how to get rid of his Michael problem, is what Michael will do once their 'condition' is eventually cured. (The fact that he's actually talking to Michael has long stopped being a novelty, and holy fuck, when did _that_ happen?) Michael's list is ever growing, and it always makes for something of a cheerful distraction after a very depressing day of finding jack squat.  
  
“You say it like it's a sickness.” Michael says amused.  
  
Adam unconsciously kicks at his form in a friendly manner, and sips his coffee. “It kind of is, if you go to think about it.”  
  
“Travel. I blame your watching the Travel Network for that.”  
  
It's all so mundane that it seems surreal and it makes Adam laugh. “Still not what I was expecting. You really want to do human things, huh?”  
  
“ _Yes_.” Michael says it with such feeling, that Adam can't help but be infected with it too.  
  
“All right, where?”  
  
“Venice.”  
  
“Huh. Funny. I've always wanted to go there too.” Adam says. Michael smiles at him for that, like he's letting Adam in on a secret that he can't remember.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Days, weeks, and months go by. No more angels come around. Adam eventually stops asking Michael questions, resigning himself to the fact that the former archangel won't answer them. They still discuss plans, alternatives, Adam speculates on the 'whys' while Michael dismisses it.  
  
He starts hoping that maybe Michael was right about it blowing over, that it has blown over. He doesn't need to say it, but Michael seems to be hoping for the same.  
  
He gets used to co-habituating with the former archangel. Gets used to coming home with some lead on their condition before Michael debunks it. To Michael sitting on his sofa, watching a game or movie with him, and asking questions quietly. To him hovering around when Adam reads, until Adam gives up and starts reading aloud, just to stop the former archangel from reading over his shoulder. To discussing the fucking monthly budget with him, ranting to him about work, and bills. Talking about music and politics, and sports and everything under the sun. To Michael's ghostly heat at his back whenever he's cooking as Michael watches fascinated. To Michael sitting in front of him whenever he eats lunch.  
  
To Michael hovering around everywhere, moving through rooms and walls so much like the house belongs to him too. To watching Michael's form walk through the hallways, trailing ghostly fingers along the walls and humming.  
  
He gets used to it all so much, that sometimes when Michael fades out because he needs some time to himself, Adam _misses_ him. He's started to see Michael as a friend.  
  
It's nice having someone to live with again, even if they're a former archangel or ghost or whatever Michael is. The house doesn't feel empty. Doesn't feel lonely any more.  
  
And Michael without his earlier angelic pride turns out to be excellent company. Actual likeable company. It's like Michael's almost _human_.  
  
Life goes on.  
  
He still has good days and neutral days and bad days. The bad days still outnumber the good ones. Except now there's an added Michael factor. On the good days, Michael takes to reading over his shoulder, or snarking with him when he watches TV, because apparently turning ghost gives you abilities for sarcasm. On the neutral days he's offering advice on how to work the budget, and stupid things like that. And when the neutral days slowly start hinging into the bad, or the bad days get worse, Michael is there. Ghostly, calm, light moving through him, but he's a firm warm presence, and he's comforting, and Adam doesn't think too much about that, just accepts it without looking a gift horse in the mouth.  
  
That or he's twisted and fucked so bad in the head, that he's developing a sort of unhealthy co-dependency with Michael. It's probably the latter but it's better for Adam's brain to think of it as the former.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
He doesn't even realise when it happens. He would've continued to be oblivious if Nanny hadn't mentioned it over wine.  
  
She reaches out to hold his hand in her own wrinkled one, as she's leaving for the night. “I know you miss her, but this has to stop, Addie.”  
  
“Stop? What has to stop?” Adam asks confusion enhanced by his tipsiness.  
  
“The food. Cooking too much as if Kate's coming for lunch or dinner. Making too much coffee. The second mug, the laying out of extra dishes. Talking to yourself during the day in the house. I thought you were done grieving, but it's just gone worse. You know you can't keep doing it forever.”  
  
“Huh?” he asks, even more confused now, having no idea what she's going on about, but Nanny gives him this sad, sad look that's scarily similar to the one Michael had given him when he'd said ' _you don't remember, maybe it's better that way_ ' (and yes that is _still_ bothering him). She doesn't say anything after that, just cups his face in her hands, pulls his head down to kiss his forehead, and leaves.  
  
He walks back into the living room and flops onto the couch confused, and bothered by Nanny's words. Michael materializes immediately in front of him, worried grey-blue eyes trained on him. In fact it's kind of funny how that expression is the one Adam's most familiar with. Michael always seems worried about him.  
  
Then it hits. Adam swears, surprising Michael.  
  
“Adam, Adam, what's wrong?”  
  
“Nothing,” he squeaks, breaking out laughing at the absurdity of it all, because he has no way of explaining it. In fact there's no reason he should even be doing it. He's been laying out extra dishes for Michael, without even realizing he was doing it. It's stupid, so very stupid, because Michael isn't alive. He's a spectre haunting Adam, because as he puts it – _Adam is his Cage_. But still he's been doing it as if in anticipation for things to right itself and what? Michael to magically have a separate body and do all the things his ghostly self does with Adam. To want to stay here in this house with Adam, to do all those human things he talks about doing, even if he's more likely to leave and go back to Heaven, where he belongs.  
  
(And wow that thought hurts. It hurts a _lot_.)  
  
He's falling for the archangel. He should have seen it coming from the moment he realised that he'd stopped seeing Michael as a threat.  
  
Michael looks at him even more worried, and that just makes Adam laugh harder at it, the irony of it all, _everything_ , until tears are rolling down his cheeks.  
  
He's so fucked up it should not even be funny, yet it is.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
He tries to avoid Michael after that. Tries to gain some distance so that he can look at his life objectively again and kick sense into his head. This is Michael he's falling for. Michael who has screwed him over beyond belief, who's haunting him because he's bound to Adam's house. Who'd tortured him in the Cage, and as peacefully as they're living together now, it's only because of forced circumstances. Michael has no use for him otherwise.  
  
Michael however, doesn't take kindly to Adam's sudden distance, if invading his personal space is any indication. Adam manages to get away every time, but Michael only gets more persistent.  
  
“What's wrong? You've been acting strangely since Mrs McGee came over that day.” Michael's incorporeal form is fucking straddling him in his bed, and wow there is so much _wrong_ with this.  
  
“None of your business. Now get off.” Adam grouses. He knows he can move through Michael if he absolutely has too, but that's like moving through fire sometimes.  
  
“Adam, you can tell me.”  
  
“None of your damn business, Michael.”  
  
“ _Adam_.” Michael's right in his face then, radiating enough heat to make Adam feel like he's roasting.  
  
“All right I'll tell you why I've been acting weird if you tell me exactly what I can't remember that makes you mope.” It's playing dirty and he knows it. Adam's figured out that there's some bad memory attached to it. But Adam doesn't want to deal with his growing feelings and attachment to the former archangel, and he just wants Michael to stop. Michael seems to get it, because he lets up, gives Adam his space, and doesn't ask after that.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Adam is the one that ends up caving first. He's got so used to having someone other than Nanny around that avoiding Michael becomes tedious.  
  
It's on a bad day, when he's too alien and feels like he's back in the Cage and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and hates what he sees. He's screaming and scrambling back, and calling for Michael before he even knows it. Michael's at his side in an instant, talking, calming Adam until the panic recedes, and then orders Adam into his room.  
  
Adam listens, and the next day they go back to how it was before Adam's epic realisation of 'hey I might have this fucked up thing for the ghost haunting me, who is co-incidentally the archangel who fucked me over thrice, and have I mentioned it's fucked up, like really?'  
  
Michael seems happy, genuinely happy, doesn't ask why, and it just makes things worst, because now Adam feel like an utter ass. But things do settle down after that.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Actually now that Adam pays attention, Michael does seem genuinely happy to help Adam, to talk to Adam, to be in the same room as Adam a lot. He actively _seeks_ out Adam. Seems even happier when Adam seeks him out. Tries his hardest to be a part of Adam's life, even in the most mundane things. Like figuring out what to take Nanny to cheer her up when she gets hospitalised, or plan this week's groceries. Leaves whenever Adam so much as glares at him with an odd expression on his face.  
  
Adam had thought it was initially due to Michael being sorry, and trying to make amends in his own way, and yes it does seem to partly be that, there's something nagging at him.  
  
 _You're my Cage, and now this is my Cage._ That's what Michael had said. Adam had taken it differently back then, but he's started looking at it in a new light off late. Started re-examining that statement, and a lot of Michael's recent behaviour in context with Adam's own behaviour. Looks back now, and remembers Michael before the angels came in, when Adam was trying to get rid of him, and in reality Michael was simply trying to communicate. When Michael, in hindsight, seemed more like a wounded animal scared out if it's mind, which made so much sense because he was suddenly without his powers or even without a physical body, in his vessel's house. When what Adam did trying to get rid of him could count as _torture_. How Michael had seemed relieved once they came to a truce. How Michael started _seeking_ him out, seemed to enjoy every interaction they had after that where Adam didn't try and banish him.  
  
Adam starts re-examining _everything_ , and he doesn't like what his mind is telling him.  
  
Maybe it's just Adam projecting. Maybe it's him trying to make sense of his own twisted feelings for Michael. And he hopes it's just that. He hopes with all his fucking self. But, of late, taking in Michael's behaviour, he's starting to wonder if Michael has some weird Stockholm Syndrome thing going on for him.  
  
An archangel. The Sword of Heaven. Michael. Having Stockholm Syndrome in regard to Adam. And Jesus Christ, that is fucked up. That is so fucked up. It's beyond a whole universe of fucked up, before coming back to meet that it doesn't even come around, just breaks a barrier and keeps going, and getting lost and further lost in the abyss of fucking wrong.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
The thing is Adam can't even avoid Michael, because Michael goes sad and moody and quiet, in a way that makes it seem like Adam is hurting him. It's in those moments that the soft “ _you don't remember_ ” sits in his head like a mantra and drives him crazy.  
  
And the thing is Adam can't really stay close to Michael, because his own fucked up attraction just gets worse, (as in jacking off in the shower to the thought of him and Michael worse) and he really doesn't know what to fucking do any more.  
  
So Adam does nothing. He clamps down on his feelings and pretends that there is no problem, and hopes that if he ignores it enough it'll just _go away_.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
But the problem doesn't, because Adam is still the Universe's favourite butt-monkey.  
  
He comes home from work one night sometime past midnight because he stopped by to visit Nanny in the hospital and managed to convince the nurses into letting him stay longer than usual before the new shift kicked him out, to Michael sitting on the sofa staring at his hands. It takes a moment to realise that there's no light going through him, that's he's solid and _real_.  
  
“Michael, what?”  
  
Michael looks up, staring at Adam in wonder. “I'm human,” he says as an answer.  
  
“I can see. How?” Did things fix itself? Does Michael have his Grace back? Why isn't Michael possessing him? After all he's Michael's vessel, and Adam always thought that fixing their condition would entail Adam playing suit again, without consent because he's already housing Michael's Grace. Adam has so many questions running through his mind right now, and one look at Michael confirms that he's in the same boat.  
  
“I don't know.” Michael says finally. “I just, I was suddenly like this. It's been a few hours now.” He looks scared and more importantly happy at the same time, smiling.  
  
“No idea how?”  
  
“None. It's better than the other state. I can feel things. I borrowed your clothes, I hope you don't mind.”  
  
Adam lets out a bark of laughter at that, trying to ignore the feeling of possessiveness and want that makes it's way down his spine at the thought of Michael wearing his clothes. He claps his hand on Michael's back, a little surprised at the sound, the feeling of cloth and warm skin under his hand. Even though he knew it was going to be there, part of him was still expecting his hand to go through Michael. He marvels at the fever warmth radiating from Michael, unconsciously rubbing circles with his thumb where his hand is, before he catches himself, and pulls his hand away. Puts down the slight frown he gets as him projecting, or Michael's own issues. “No, no problem. Hey come on, we should celebrate your sudden non-ghostliness.”  
  
“Adam that doesn't even make sense.”  
  
“Of course it does. I'm giving you an excuse to get drunk.”  
  
Michael smiles at that, murmurs something about eating first, which Adam can do, Adam can totally do. Eating is probably better than drinking now that he thinks about it. Getting drunk might cause problems.  
  
It's odd being able to actually feel Michael hovering over him as he cooks. It's _nice_ , and Adam stamps down on the thought, because he's been trying to deny whatever their issues are for ages now. Michael becoming real, tangible should not change it, because now it means Michael is free to leave right? Michael is free, and he needs to know that, that Adam won't hold him back.  
  
Though, Adam keeps wondering aloud how it happened before Michael shuts him up with a “You always tell me not to question a good thing.”  
  
Michael helps him set up the table, eats slowly and then digs in and it's just amazing to watch. “This is good. I've been waiting for so long to actually eat your cooking,” he says through a mouthful, smiling crookedly when Adam laughs. He insists on helping Adam clean up, pressing a little closer into Adam's space. Adam would say something, _should_ say something considering what this might be, but he knows what it's like to be starved for contact. He's been starved for contact since Nanny was hospitalised. So he allows it. Besides, Adam's already used to it, and despite the fucked up reasons behind it, he wants to take what little he can get. Michael keeps to Adam's side the rest of the night, talking animatedly more than he's ever heard Michael speak before, while Adam still worries about the sudden change. Worries about what it may mean for them now.  
  
It's a put out sigh, and warmth invading Adam's space that makes Adam look up, and really look up, and Michael is leaning in. “Michael, what?”  
  
Michael just leans in further, close enough that they're breathing in the same air. His gaze is hooded and his eyes are trained on Adam's lips. And then with a simple 'I want this', Michael is kissing him, warm, chaste and soft.  
  
It's Adam who deepens it without even thinking, pulls Michael closer, fists his hand in the short hairs at the base of his skull. Michael groans clearly not used to kissing at all, and then practically _melts_ against Adam with a relieved sigh, and wow. _Wow_.  
  
Adam should push him away, do something more, because this is wrong on so many levels. None of this is stemming from anything healthy, and Adam should be the bigger person and put a stop to it. Should have realised that allowing Michael to hang around closer than normal could be taken like a come-on in this way. Instead, he's pulling Michael even closer, making Michael whine for air, chasing Michael's lips when he does pull away. But it's like Michael has broken the dam or opened up the floodgates of all the fucked up feelings Adam has for him, which he's been trying to stifle, keep locked up and hidden from Michael. It's like Adam's body has suddenly remembered on the good parts of physical intimacy he'd seemed to have forgotten about other than his own hand, until just now. And Michael is warm, is tangible, is _real_ and in his arms. And now, given that inch, Adam not even going to stop after a few thousand miles, even if he knows he should.  
  
There's also the fact that something about this seems too achingly familiar, like they've done this before, and that should make Adam think. It should make him stop, because once again Michael's soft “ _you don't remember_ ” flashes through his mind. but it just makes Adam want to cling onto this even more. So he manoeuvres them on the couch until Michael in on top of him, slides his hands under his clothes to touch Michael's fever warm skin, and grinds up into Michael causing him to moan brokenly into Adam's mouth. And it's good. It's fucking good, because Michael copies his actions, reacts so fucking beautifully, that Adam really doesn't want to stop.  
  
He doesn't know when he falls asleep, between the pawing and groping, and kissing, but he wakes up on the couch to a snarling Michael.  
  
“Michael? Michael, what?” he slurs, looking at Michael in shock. And then he remembers the previous night, and goes, “Fuck, shit, sorry Michael, I shouldn't have- we shouldn't-”  
  
Michael looks at him, amidst shaking and rippling in the brightening morning glow, and it takes Adam a moment to realise that Michael is _translucent_ , he's back to his normal spectral state.  
  
“Michael, what? How? I thought?” Adam tries to form some words, but Michael looks broken, and shocked, and then just up and vanishes.


	4. Chapter 4

  
Michael goes quiet after that. Doesn't talk to Adam. Avoids him completely, which yeah makes total sense. Adam fucked up, and he fucked up badly.  
  
Adam doesn't even know what to do.  
  
It's a whole new level of fucked up, something which Adam didn't even think was possible, from there onwards.  
  
  


-x-x-x-

  
  
  
  
It's been a long time since that the angel incident, so much that it's sort of slipped his mind completely. Almost nearly a year? Maybe more or less, Adam doesn't know. He's better at keeping time these days, but not by much. And off late he's been more bothered by Michael's sudden one night of having a body, making out like horny teenagers on his couch, before going back to being a ghost, and the subsequent radio silence to notice the other things.  
  
So, he's a little surprised when there's a crash in the living room early in the morning. He grabs the baseball bat by his bed, and heads down expecting burglars.  
  
Instead, he finds a short man with brown hair holding an injured dark skinned woman up. Finds Michael looking worried, and freaking out. Finds that sudden unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach which he had been ignoring up until now amplifying, before he realises it's Michael's _Grace_ that's behind that.  
  
“Uh what?” He tries, hands still gripping the baseball bat tightly, waiting for any sign to brain one or both of the intruders.  
  
Michael ignores him. “Gabriel, what happened to Raphael?”  
  
Gabriel? Raphael? As in the _archangels_? Michael's siblings? What the fuck is going on?  
  
“Castiel's opened Purgatory and gone on a bender,” Gabriel replies. “I didn't know where else to bring her.”  
  
There are so many questions that need to be asked, but Adam realises that this is not the time for it. These two don't seem like threats. And with the way Michael's Grace is thrumming angrily inside him, trying to reach out to the injured woman, he knows he'll not be able to rest until she's better. Even if a bigger part of him doesn't trust them, doesn't want them here or anywhere near his life again. Wants them to stop existing altogether.  
  
Also, Gabriel has this look on his face, one that says he's not above doing a Zachariah on Adam to get his way, so Adam agrees. “My bedroom,” he offers. “She can lie down there.”  
  
Both Michael and Gabriel send him a thankful look, and Adam realises that yes he made the right decision. At least he hopes he has, and that this won't come back to bite him in the ass later. He sighs, deciding that he's going to need a whole lot of coffee.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Apparently Gabriel is supposed to be dead – _was_ supposed to be dead. Lucifer killed him. Except as Michael informs Adam when he materialises in the kitchen, Gabriel seems to have been faking his death, and watching from the sidelines.  
  
Raphael and Castiel started a civil war in Heaven once Michael and Lucifer were locked up in the Cage. Castiel wanted Free-Will, and Raphael wanted to restart Revelations. They were both fighting for more power, and more souls. Heaven's been divided ever since. Things were in Raphael's favour until Castiel opened the door to Purgatory and brought back enough souls to give him power. And then nearly killed Raphael.  
  
Michael goes back to being broodingly silent after that, and doesn't utter a word.  
  
Later Gabriel tells him bitterly over coffee, (it's odd because he talks to Adam like Adam is a _friend_ , even though he's known Adam only since this morning) when Michael forces him downstairs for a break and takes vigil over Raphael, that Castiel's wiped out most of Heaven too.  
  
Adam wants to ask how Gabriel knew to bring Raphael here, or why they came here, but he doesn't. He's learned from dealing with Michael that he won't get a straight answer. Instead, he leaves the archangels to it, and goes to have a panic attack in his car, and then visit Nanny at the hospital. It helps.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
It's nearing a week since Gabriel and Raphael appeared in his living room. Adam comes back from his daily hospital visit to Nanny, to find Gabriel and Michael engaged in a verbal sparring match.  
  
“You should know better than to keep secrets from loved ones. You know how it turns out.”  
  
“Gabriel.”  
  
“Don't 'Gabriel' me. You know what it's done. Look at Lucifer. Look at yourself. Look at me. You didn't even know when I left. Look at Raphael. Look at what she did. For _you. Raphael_ , Michael. The only one out of us who hated bloodshed, but developed an acquired taste for it, because you needed a warrior not a healer. She's been going insane for _millennia, Lucifer-insane_ , and you didn't even pay attention.”  
  
Michael slumps looking defeated. His grey see through form getting more lighter. “What do you want, Gabriel?” It's quiet, almost in the same tone that Michael says ' _you don't remember_ ' to Adam.  
  
“World peace, and happiness. What do you think, Michael? I want us to at least be family, like family should be. I want us to be happy again. Raphael, me, Lucifer the day he gets out, you and your human, because we might be the only ones left. Mostly, for once, I want you to tell the truth. You can't keep hiding things forever. Not when this is your fuck up.”  
  
“Um,” Adam finds himself interrupting, because well he can't keep standing in the doorway forever, and secondly, because it feels like if he doesn't step in then there's going to be some spectacular furniture damage. They both look at him, before Michael fades out, leaving with him with Gabriel.  
  
Gabriel sighs, sitting on his couch, motioning him over. There's something oddly familiar about it, and Adam can't place where he's seen it before.  
  
“Raphael?” Adam asks because that's the thing to do. And because he's not even sure how to begin asking about what the hell was happening when he got in.  
  
Gabriel deflates. “She's- She'll heal. She won't be happy about what she's about to find out, me being alive. And Michael being out of the Cage, and shacking up with you to play house, considering she started a war to get him out. About the Leviathans, but she'll heal. Hopefully better than the last time.”  
  
“Michael and me, aren't shacking up. It's kind of a forced thing.” He says it, because it's the truth. Adam tries not to think about his fucked up feelings for Michael. Tries not to think about how Michael seems to reciprocate them thanks to his own fucked up reasons. About that one night, when Michael was tangible, and how they fell asleep making out on the couch, before he went back to being Casper again. Because it's not healthy. There will never be a realm in which it will ever be healthy.  
  
Gabriel scoffs in disbelief and then magics a cup of what smells like hot chocolate into his hand. “Yeah, he'd shack up with you even without the condition.”  
  
“How did you even know to come here?” Adam's trying to digress, because he doesn't really want to talk about the thing he and Michael have going on right now. Not when Michael's still silent and brooding with him. Not when Adam knows he fucked up royally. Doesn't want to ask about what he ended up interrupting.  
  
“I've been watching you since you got out.”  
  
“Wait, _WHAT_?”  
  
“Relax kid. I didn't blab, and I wasn't even going too. I like the world the way it is, even though it could do with some fixing up. I just wanted to know why big bro's Grace was suddenly back topside after he was supposed to have fallen into the Cage and then I saw this little thing.” Gabriel replies, seemingly reading Adam's mind. “It's just when it happened, I didn't know where else to lay low with her, without attracting attention. I can manage well alone, but not when I'm hiding someone else. And you two have managed to turn this thing into an undetectable fortress.”  
  
Adam does relax, only marginally. “So...” he starts searching for something to say, any way to put word to his train of thoughts. There's so much he wants to know, wants to ask. And he wants to comfort as well, because Gabriel has an expression on his face that Adam has seen in his own reflection. He knows what it's like to lose family.  
  
It's Gabriel who breaks the silence. “He hasn't told you how he got you two out yet, has he?”  
  
“Yes – _no_ , wait he got us out?”  
  
“Gabriel.” And that'd be Michael, back in the living room, glaring daggers at Gabriel.  
  
“Mickey,” Gabriel replies back easily, “I was just telling Adam about how he got out since he's so nicely lending us his house, and he deserves to know, and you won't tell him.”  
  
“ _Gabriel_ ,” and this time it's pleading. Adam watches Gabriel give in, get up and go upstairs, leaving just Michael and him alone in the living room.  
  
“You know,” Adam says ignoring the fact that Michael has already started fading out to avoid him again, “you're going to have to tell me eventually.”  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Raphael wakes up on a Wednesday, and that's how everything unravels.  
  
It's nearing a few months since they appeared in his living room. Gabriel and Raphael seem to have become such a common fixture in his life, that Nanny doesn't even ask about Raphael when she comes over. Just seems to accept the fact that Adam has two house-guests, one who's for all intents and purposes a vegetable, and needs constant care, and Adam kind of loves her for that. Either that or Gabriel's behind her not caring with using his angelic powers.  
  
Gabriel and Michael were having yet another argument in the living room when he got in, and so he'd decided to just go upstairs and leave them to it, because dealing with them is tedious. Michael still won't tell him anything, and won't let Gabriel talk either. Adam's given up on them. He walks into his room only to have the air knocked out of his lungs as he's slammed into the door by Raphael, her hand trying to crush his neck. Her eyes are completely, a light purplish blue, like there's a film of the colour covering them.  
  
“Um, Raphael, hi,” is all he manages, before she snarls in his face.  
  
“You're not him. Who are you? What did you _do_ to him?”  
  
He's trying to choke out an answer, when Gabriel is behind her, pulling her off him, murmuring something into her ear in what's definitely not English, but Adam finds the language familiar. He just can't place it. Adam makes the mistake of looking at the floor because the scene is so intimate and he feels like he's intruding but then he sees Raphael's shadow _crackle_. Her shadow actually _crackles_.  
  
Whatever it is Gabriel says, it calms her down because her shadow seems to still, and when Adam looks back up at them she's slumped against Gabriel, who's still holding onto her tightly.  
  
“She just woke up,” Adam supplies lamely, not knowing what else to say. It draws Raphael's gaze back to him, and he tries shrinking against the wall because that look is terrifying. Thankfully Michael materialises in time to draw her gaze away from him. At least that's what Adam thinks because she takes one look at Michael, before her eyes narrow. She turns her ire back on Adam and lunges for him again, breaking free of Gabriel's grip.  
  
“ _You made him bow. You made him **bow**_ ,” her scream sounds like thunderclaps, making the whole house rattle. There's an oppressive pressure – _her Grace_ , Adam realises – crushing him. Adam's vaguely aware, while trying to breathe and push her off, that Gabriel is trying to get her off him. “ _What did you do to him?_ ” It's too much, Adam can't feel anything besides it, and everything is starting to go white in front of his eyes. He can't breathe. The Grace inside him, Michael's Grace, is singing in retaliation. Pain erupts all over his body, familiar from days he tries to forget. Adam feels like he's being stretched taut and pushed into a pinpoint at the same time, being disintegrated into too much light and air and fire.  
  
There are flashes and snapshots of memories playing across his eyes, even as spots dance in his vision. Of Michael taking his consent, promising him his mother back. Screaming as the holy oil burned him too his bones, and screaming louder as Michael pieced him back. Of falling, falling, falling, waiting for the rock bottom that never seemed to be coming. Of Hell and running and hiding. Of Sam screaming, and him screaming. Of Grace ripping him apart, and then trying to piece him back together haphazardly whispering apologies. Of Michael, pressing his Grace against Adam's abused raw soul in a new different way, but not unwelcome. Of wings, bright beautiful even with the sulphur staining them, keeping Adam safe. Of pleas, and promises whispered into his mouth.  
  
He remembers Death, tall, and pale, looking at him curiously. He remembers the deal.  
  
He _remembers_.  
  
“He didn't do anything Raphael. It was my choice.” Adam can make out Michael kneeling next to them, his voice trying for something comforting. Raphael's hands leave his neck, the pressure eases up as she turns to him, allowing Adam to breathe again. There are still spots dancing across his vision and he's still a little light headed. Gabriel's already pulled her off him again, and he's just there on the floor breathing heavily.  
  
Adam doesn't even have to look at them to know that Gabriel's about to tell him to leave, along with Michael. He shakily gets up, and leaves the room, needing to just digest everything.  
  
When he goes up later to check in on Raphael and Gabriel, his room is empty.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Adam can't remember everything. Just bits and pieces of jagged fragments of memories coming together forming an incomplete puzzle with most of the pieces missing and the ends lost. But he knows, gut instinct telling him, that he remembers the important bits.  
  
This is how it went:  
  
The prophecy was wrong. Revelations was _wrong_.  
  
They fell, and fell, and _fell_.  
  
Adam ran, and hid, and ran, and hid, from the Cage itself, because there was something there, not Lucifer, not Michael, not even Sam or him, but _the Cage itself_ , that made one mad. It wound itself into the cracks of one's existence and mutated it, bit by bit, turned it into something it was not. Sometimes he succeeded, and mostly he failed.  
  
He ran until he found Michael, wounded and injured just like him, and without thinking drew Michael to him, and then they ran together. Formed a sort of awkward partnership. Tried to keep each other sane. Tried to keep each other existing. Fought off the other when the insanity took hold of another part of them and changed them yet again. Searched for Lucifer and Sam in the abyss, chasing their screams. And somewhere in there, in that place where seconds stretched into lifetimes, between the running, and the chasing, and the fighting, and the screams and the insanity, and the few rare reprieves in between, it became just the two of them against everything in the Cage.  
  
He knows they talked, they talked for ages, whenever they got the time, in an attempt to keep themselves sane. They talked about everything. Michael told him about his Father, Lucifer, Raphael, Gabriel, the other angels; about the Heavenly War; about Adam and Eve and the Fall; about God leaving, and the lifetimes he'd lived waiting for Him to come back. Adam told Michael about his Mom and how she was the most amazing person he'd ever known, and the lazy afternoons they'd spent together on the couch whenever she was home. About Kristin his best friend who he'd thought as a child, he would one day marry, and got into all sorts of trouble with. About Nanny, Kristin's grandmother and the closest thing he had to one, who'd bake him cookies and chase away his nightmares when Mom wasn't there to do it for him. About wanting to meet his Dad, and the mix of joy and anger at John Winchester. About school, and wanting to be a doctor, and join the Doctors Without Borders. About wanting to travel one day, especially to Venice. And he remembers Michael listening enchanted. Remembers Michael wondering what it would be like to be human.  
  
They spoke about getting out. About human things to do, and see, and experience, when they got out, because they needed the hope to keep them sane. About going places, Venice like Adam had always wanted to, and maybe Mombasa, and maybe even Rome and the Vatican City for the sheer irony. Talked about things to eat, Adam citing Italian and Indian and Ethiopian cuisine, and trashy junk food and just wanting to try everything once.  
  
 _One day_ , Adam had said, _when you're a real boy, we'll do all of this_.  
  
Somewhere in there, they fell in love.  
  
Michael bowed to him in the Cage, turned away everything he was for _Adam_.  
  
Michael promised him the world, a world, a happily ever after only if Adam would agree to it, his Grace crashing into Adam's soul in a way that should have charred him to stardust, but instead just seared in ways that one could call sinful. And Adam had whispered “ _yes_ ” fiercely against the Grace burning at his lips, and meant it with everything he was.  
  
Michael summoned Death with battered bruised and tainted Grace, and Adam's blood, and they made the deal.  
  
Adam woke up and he wasn't in Hell any more. He was home, and cursed.  
  
And Adam _forgot_.  
  
  


-x-x-x-

  
  
  
  
“Michael,” Adam calls out in the quiet house. “Michael, I _remember_.”  
  
He does this daily, trying his hardest to get Michael to acknowledge him.  
  
Michael still doesn't answer him, and Adam feels like tearing his hair out.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Raphael, as Gabriel informs Adam when he pops over a few days later, is healing slowly, painfully, and in fragments. She's in and out of consciousness. She won't be better for a long, long time. Adam doesn't understand the details, but all he knows is that Raphael was slowly going insane managing to poison her own Grace long before, and whatever Castiel's did to her while influenced by the Leviathans in Purgatory has only made it worse. All Adam knows is that she has aeons worth of damage to heal, and that Gabriel is determined to make sure it happens, and that after that confrontation, maybe being here, isn't the best for her. Adam agrees on the latter bit.  
  
“I could've taken her with me when I left. I _should've_ taken her with me. I'm not leaving her again,” he says one day in Adam's kitchen while Adam cooks lunch. It's become a regular and almost welcome occurrence, having someone to talk too, since Nanny's gotten hospitalised again and Michael still won't even be in the same room as him, let alone speak to him. Though Adam still wonders why Gabriel comes here. He wonders if it's for the company too. If Adam understands well, Heaven is no more, and Raphael doesn't seem to be great company considering she's still not waking up for long enough periods.  
  
“Michael still won't talk to me.” Adam supplies, a little bitterly.  
  
When he looks up from the stir-fry, it's to Gabriel watching him intently, golden gaze heavy. “You _know_   what happened.” It's not a question, but a statement.  
  
“Bit and pieces, yeah. I still don't remember everything, but I remember enough. At least the important bits. He bowed to me, _for me_.” Adam says, breathing in deeply because he can't say the words, doesn't think he ever will be able to do it, without the enormity of overwhelming him. “I still don't get why we wound up the way we did, though.”  
  
“Don't look at me, kiddo. I didn't even know it was possible to break open the Cage or escape it, without opening the seals.” Adam doesn't even bother sighing as he goes back to concentrating on cooking. Really he should've expected it. “But,” Gabriel continues on, “this looks more like a curse to me.”  
  
“There's something that can actually curse an archangel?”  
  
“There's a _list_.” Gabriel says. And well, fuck.  
  
“He did become human once. For a night. He was back to-” Adam breaks off to make a hand gesture that he hopes signifies what Michael is right now, “-the next morning. That's when the whole silent treatment started.”  
  
Gabriel's gaze narrows, his expression screwed up in an oddly familiar way. Adam realises for the very first time (his mind always chooses the worst moments to connect the dots on certain trains of thought – like for instance _now_ ) exactly _whom_   Gabriel reminds him off that makes him feel so comfortable to be around despite his being an archangel. When he makes that face, it's easy to mistake him for Mom, and wow. Fucking _wow_. He's so taken in by the realisation that he nearly misses Gabriel's “Definitely a curse.”  
  
“Well, _fuck_.” And Adam doesn't know exactly what he's cursing about.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Adam rolls over onto his back trying to get comfortable on his bed, to Michael's ethereal form straddling him. In the moonlight filtering through the windows, he looks white, almost silver, instead of grey. Adam blinks a few moments, taking it in, and wondering if he's dreaming. He has had this dream a few times, the one where Michael comes to him, and they work things out, so it won't be surprising if this is yet another one of those. He blinks, rubs his eyes, blinks again, pinches himself. Nope, not dreaming. Michael is here. Michael is _here_.  
  
“I remember.” It's the first thing he says, and he sees Michael's form shudder in the moonlight.  
  
“I remember.” he says again firmer this time looking straight into Michael's eyes. Michael leans over, ghostly form still shaking (Adam forgets sometimes how _human_ has become, was already in the Cage, _is_ ) until all Adam can feel is heat, a memory of what Michael's Grace felt like against his soul before they joined in a way humans and angels weren't ever meant too. Adam reaches out blindly, even though he knows his hands will go through Michael's form, and holds his arms in something that would resemble a hug.  
  
“I _remember_.” he chants softly, and Adam realises he's crying.  
  
“I didn't want you too. You would've been happier. You were until I, until we, that night. I realised it only then.” Michael confesses finally, sounding tired and raw. It makes Adam ache, because despite what Michael took from him, despite how much he made Adam suffer, in his quest and then influenced by the insanity that permeated through one's essence in the Cage. Despite all of that. Michael has given more back to Adam. He's repaid his debts thousand times over. He bowed for Adam, is still bowing for him, and Adam is taking and _taking_ without even realising it.  
  
“No, I wouldn't have.” Adam says, and part of him hates himself for this, because he's about to ask Michael for more, even though he has no right too. But Michael deserves to be happy. He's suffered for longer than Adam's existed. “Gabriel said it was a curse. We'll figure this out. We'll fix this. You owe me a happily ever after any way, and mine has you in it.”  
  
“ _One day, when I'm a real boy, right Adam?_ ” Michael breathes out and it sounds wrecked, and Adam wishes Michael was tangible so that he could actually hold him. Curses himself for making that joke.  
  
“You _are_ real. And we'll be okay Michael. We'll be okay.”  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
It gets easier after that. Michael stops being broody, stops avoiding Adam, starts talking to Adam again.  
  
They're a little awkward, and that's bound to happen after months of not talking, but they manage. Michael doesn't hover over him while he cooks, like he used too, but he's still close by. He won't invade Adam's personal space like he did earlier, unless he's in Adam's bed – which now is a thing and Adam is thankful for it, but he does stay close enough inside Adam's periphery for Adam to feel the heat radiating of his ghostly form. He goes right back to helping plan out the monthly budget though, and reminding Adam about upcoming due dates for paying the bills, and for that Adam is grateful because while he's getting better at telling time, he's still not completely there yet.  
  
Adam has missed it, missed it all so much, that he can't keep the smile off his face whenever Michael appears in the same room as him, and his face is starting to hurt from it. But it doesn't matter, because he finally has company in the house again, specifically _Michael's company_ , after months of radio silence that was driving him insane. And more importantly Michael seems to be smiling too.  
  
Gabriel stops by more often. Mostly with news that Raphael's healing, or info on their curse. There's normally nothing new on the latter, but each visit hearing about Raphael's – albeit extremely slow recuperation – is good. It's like music to his ears. Adam knows that Raphael has a lot of scars to heal, that she will never forgive Michael or Gabriel completely, never trust them completely. He knows why, both Michael and Gabriel have told him, but those are their versions, not Raphael's. But hearing she's doing better always lifts Adam's spirits, because it makes Michael happy, and Gabriel is happy that Raphael is doing better which makes Michael happier. And that makes Adam happy, and it's a happy circle all around.  
  
He might actually accidentally say that aloud one day, and Gabriel sputters laughing, while Michael gives him this ridiculously fond look, that makes Adam want to say more stupid things just to keep it in place. Oh he has it, he has it _bad_.  
  
And to just add the cherry on top of an amazing cake, Nanny gets released from her second hospital stint with a clean bill of health.  
  
She also comes over with an _actual_ home-made cake, with actual cherries on top, and Adam spends an afternoon fending off the resulting heart-attack over the fact that her first job after Adam deposited her in her bed, was to get up and go make him cake the moment he left to go home to cook _her_ lunch. When Kristin finds out when she comes over – if she does because they haven't made up over their old fight, she _will_ kill him.  
  
(Gabriel however is a cake thief, and really enjoys said cake when he visits later, judging by the way Adam has only about two small pieces of it left.)  
  
The thing is, that even if most things stay the same, there are things, even the small things that get better, and that is something to celebrate over.

 


	6. Chapter 6

  
Raphael leaves on a Friday.  
  
Adam knows this because he can keep track of time now. The blur and confusion of eternities spent in the Cage messing him up is fading. It's not completely gone, but it's fading enough.  
  
He also knows this because Raphael comes over to say goodbye herself.  
  
Adam isn't expecting it. He still remembers how his last meeting with an awake Raphael went. And well Raphael for some weird reason reminds him of Zachariah, which Adam knows is unfair to her, but he can't help the association. Also, he's the last person he'd expected her to say goodbye too. Or even talk too, considering the fact that she hates him.  
  
“It's come to my knowledge that you offered me safe haven while I was injured,” is how she greets him while he's walking home from work, appearing in-step with him. It makes Adam jump, before realising it's her.  
  
“Uh yeah. It wasn't a problem though. You're Michael's sister, and wait are you all right enough to be up?”  
  
Raphael levels a glare at him, which promptly makes him swallow. “We are not like you. We heal faster.”  
  
“Gabriel said it'll take a long time.”  
  
“Gabriel underestimates me.”  
  
“Right. Okay,” because honestly Adam has nothing to reply to that. All he's heard about Raphael is from Gabriel and Michael.  
  
“I came to thank you for what you did, before I left. I don't like being in debt.” She's holding something out to him, something long and wrapped in cloth.  
  
“Uh.”  
  
“ _Take it._ ” She says. Well more like orders it with and impatient growl that sounds more like a thunderclap.  
  
“Ma'am, yes Ma'am.” The words are out of his mouth before he even realises it, but apparently it must amuse Raphael a little because he's pretty sure he saw the corners of her mouth twitch. It's gone immediately though.  
  
“It might come to be of use. Part of my debt to you is cleared.” She leaves after that, gone as quietly and in the blink of a second, just like she'd arrived. Adam doesn't bother with trying to figure it out as he continues on his way home.  
  
Later he finds out that Raphael left without a word to anyone else, except him. Gabriel and Michael stare – or rather glare – at him when he mentions it and shows them what Raphael gave him, which apparently is Michael's angelic blade.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
“Are you still mad she told me and not you?” Adam asks over his book, stretching out in bed, when Michael is still being a little on the fidgety ghost side after Raphael left.  
  
“We're her brothers.”  
  
“Stellar job you did at being brotherly.” Adam snarks, before he catches the hurt flit across Michael's features and realising what he said. What it meant to Michael. “Shit man, sorry, I didn't mean it like that.”  
  
“No, but you're right. I've wronged her in my selfishness, and the others too.”  
  
“Look, she doesn't hate you. She just needs to be on her own for a bit. She wants to heal on her own, and you need to give her that.” Michael sighs, and Adam sighs setting his book down on the bedside table. “It'll work out, trust me. I know you don't like it. You don't have to like it. But you have to accept it. That's the beauty of being human. Frustration in heaps and bounds. Now, come here my grumpy ghost. I need to be in for work early tomorrow so I'm turning in.”  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Gabriel manages to track down Raphael a few months later. She doesn't come back with him. Apparently, she let herself be found.  
  
“She's trying to find a way to break your curse, and that I'm not supposed to come after her again.” Gabriel informs them. “And she said if I tried to come after her again, she'd rip my Grace out and feed it to Hell-hounds.”  
  
“Sounds like she's doing better already.” Michael says.  
  
“Told you guys she needed to be on her own for a bit.” Adam butts in, setting a coffee mug in front of Gabriel, and Gabriel's grinning at his words, sad and fond at the same time.  
  
“Just so you know, I think Michael wants to ruffle your hair right about now, and I know this because his Grace is doing that weird 'comfort the little brother thing' inside me, and yes it's _weird_. So unless you want hugs or something enjoy your damn coffee and stop pouting.”  
  
“Are you always a little bitch?” Gabriel asks. But he's back to snarky and not his sad guilty self, so Adam ignores Michael's scoff, and counts it as a win.  
  
“Only on Mondays, because seriously, _fuck_ Mondays.”  
  
“Today's a Thursday.” Michael corrects him.  
  
“Well, fuck Thursdays too, then.”  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Michael corners Adam later that day just as he's coming out of the shower, leaning into Adam's space. Adam knows what's coming before Michael starts shaking. This has been becoming a frequent thing between them.  
  
“Hey,” he starts voice soft, “this is not your fault. Again, this is not your fault.”  
  
“It shouldn't be like this. Raphael should be healing, not out searching for a way to fix me. Fixing my messes. I should be taking care of her. I should be able to take of you, instead of being this helpless thing.”  
  
“But that's what she wants to do, and you can't take that from her.” Adam chooses to focus on the Raphael part of this conversation because the other part is tedious. The other part gets them both into long arguments and he doesn't want that right now.  
  
Michael sighs, pushing his ethereal head into the space between Adam's neck and shoulder. Adam likes to pretend he can actually feel it's weight, feel Michael's hair tickling his chin. Michael can touch things normally, but Adam only rarely, and Adam just goes through him. “I don't have to like it.” He finally says.  
  
“No, you don't have too, but we have to deal. Come on, let's go to bed.”  
  
Michael laughs, soft and broken. “You say it like I'm real.” And the _One day you'll be a real boy_ hangs unsaid in between them, and Adam really hates himself for that joke.  
  
“You are. I will argue about this until I'm blue in the face. Don't test me. Now seriously, stop sulking and _come to bed_. We can plan that Venice trip for when we finally fix us.” Adam says firmly, ignoring Michael's defeated sigh.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Of course that doesn't stop Michael from sulking. Of course it doesn't.  
  
“Do I have to put on a strip show or something, for you to get distracted and just let Raphael be?” Adam asks one day sounding annoyed.  
  
“Kinky. Is this your new way of greeting guests?” It's Gabriel's voice from behind him, and it makes Adam jump.  
  
“One, no doing that. Two, that offer was not for you. Three, you're the sensible one, please _knock_ some sense into him.”  
  
“The fact that you're considering putting on strip shows for my brother should not be amusing.”  
  
“Eh, I'm in a monogamous relationship with an archangel turned ghost. I have to get my rocks off somehow.” If this was any other time, Adam would be worried about this, because there is something seriously wrong with him for having archangels in his house. But now this is normal for him and Gabriel. Sometimes, Gabriel even flirts with him to annoy Michael.  
  
“Again kinky.”  
  
Adam rolls his eyes, and heads to the kitchen to go make them coffee. Sure Gabriel can magic it up, he does magic it up sometimes, but mostly he plays by human rules whenever he's over. That and Adam's heading for the kitchen is basically him giving the brothers space to talk privately. “I'm still counting on you talking sense into him.”  
  
When he gets back with coffee Gabriel and Michael are arguing over something. Michael is frowning. “You don't have too,” he says.  
  
“Nope, I'm doing it.”  
  
“Doing what?” Adam asks. He won't mind if they don't answer him, it's just become his way of announcing he's back in the room. Him having Michael's Grace while in the house which is still fortified for anything supernatural wanting to attack it, has made Gabriel's honing in on him fuzzy or something.  
  
“Rebuilding Heaven.” Gabriel answers and Adam almost drops the coffee.  
  
“I thought, you said that the angels were gone? I mean Castiel took them out and...”  
  
“There are survivors. The younger ones. They're lost, and they've started coming out of hiding only now. It's better to have them in one place before they get ideas or go nuclear. Besides Raphael is covering the free the curse part with you two, and I've exhausted all my leads. And it'd be good to have something for her to come home too, when she returns.”  
  
Michael makes a sound, Adam can't figure out whether it's frustration, protest or both. But Adam on the other hand is all for the idea. There are things Gabriel and him have spoken about, brothers, and family, and being in the others shadow and never feeling good enough, worthy enough, and wanting to get away. And while Gabriel tells Adam that he reminds him of a younger Raphael, back before Lucifer fell, when Raphael was sarcastic, and funny, and a mother hen rather than what she became; Adam thinks he's more like Gabriel. He'd not like to leave anything unfinished either.  
  
“It's a good idea.” Adam hazards, wincing internally when he feels Michael's betrayed look.  
  
“See, even your boyfriend is on my side.”  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
“I still think it's a bad idea.” Michael says as Adam is cooking dinner.  
  
“Yes, you've been on about it for days. _Days_ , Michael. Maybe even weeks. I don't even know any more. I know you think it's a bad idea.” Adam frowns as he stares at the sauce he's making like it personally offends him. “And I think I've done something wrong, ugh. The colour's off.”  
  
“ _Adam._ ”  
  
“Give me sec.”  
  
“ _Adam._ ”  
  
“Yes Michael, I know you don't like this, but Gabriel made a point, and can we just drop this already?” Adam grumbles turning around before his eyes go wide. Michael isn't translucent any more. Or rather he's sort of becoming less and less translucent, and _wow_. It's like watching CGI happen in real life. “I'll call Gabriel. You should probably go put some clothes on.” Adam says, a little dazed because he cannot see through Michael any more. Michael is real and solid, and naked and _solid_ too, and Adam is too focused on the solid bit to enjoy the naked bit.  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
Gabriel and Raphael – who'd showed up out of nowhere, and sent a swift look towards Adam that shut him up before he could ask – stare at Michael, who's sitting on the couch looking exactly like he did the last time this happened. Awkward in his skin, and staring at his hands in wonder.  
  
“He suddenly got like this?” Gabriel asks.  
  
“Yep.” Adam replies, and he wishes he could do better.  
  
“When did this last happen?”  
  
“Two year ago. Exact. To this date.” Michael answers this time. “I was back to my other state by dawn the next morning.”  
  
Adam hadn't even realised it's been two years already. “I thought it's only been a few months.”  
  
“No Adam, it's been two years.”  
  
Adam frowns. He knows his sense of time is still off, but he's sure it's been a couple of months.  
  
“How long has it been since you can't keep track of time?” Raphael's asking, and pulling Adam out of his thoughts. It's the first time she's spoken all night.  
  
“Ever, since I got out of the Cage. It really messed up my sense of time. Why?” Raphael says nothing further, doesn't answer him, but Adam connects the dots on his own. “You think it has something to do with this?”  
  
She nods, gaze still flitting back between Michael and him. “I think I know what this is.”  
  
Adam doesn't like the look she has on her face. In fact that look is the look that says that bad news is about to be had. “It's permanent isn't it?” It shouldn't even be a question. Adam already knows the answer to it.  
  
“Yes. Michael's Grace is tied to your soul. It's why you're losing time. You perceive it like how an angel would. The only reason he's human right now, is because you're diffusing enough Grace for him to catch and collect to attain this form for a while.”  
  
Adam sighs, sitting next to Michael. “There's really no way to fix this?”  
  
“There is way to break it. If the host is eliminated, Michael can get his Grace back.”  
  
“ _No_.” Michael's reaction is immediate. His hand reaches out for Adam's curling around it. “I'm _not_ killing Adam.”  
  
“There's no other way. You surrendered your Grace to him when you bowed to him. You tied your Grace to his soul. The only way to get it back is to eliminate his soul.”  
  
“ _No_.” Michael says again, and Adam realising that he's about to start shaking, wraps an arm around him. He's thankful that neither Gabriel or Raphael even raise an eyebrow when Michael leans into the embrace tucking his head under Adam's chin.  
  
“So what do we do now?” Adam asks quietly, rubbing circles into Michael's back. It should feel strange that this doesn't feel strange. He's used to his hands going through Michael.  
  
“There should be another way.” Raphael offers. She doesn't sound happy about it. Adam really can't even blame her for it. He knows that she doesn't like him one bit for so many different reasons. If he were in her place, he'd probably be worst. But he also realises what this is. Her own way of saying that yes she's okay with whatever Michael and him have, and it makes him smile at her. “It'll take me some time.” She doesn't even wait for Adam to start, let alone finish thanking her before leaving.  
  
“I should get going too.” Gabriel says. “I've just started rounding off the herds. Can't leave the kids alone to play upstairs. Who knows what they'll do.”  
  
Adam snorts, and waves off Gabriel when he vanishes, before turning his attention back to Michael, hoping to lift his bad mood. “So, we have a few more hours until you're back to Casper form for however long.”  
  
Michael chuckles, apparently getting what Adam was insinuating, and leaning up to kiss him. “Bed?”  
  
“ _Bed_.” Adam confirms, pressing their foreheads together. “I intend to make full use of the next few hours for cuddling.”  
  
  


~*~

  
  
  
It's not perfect. Heck, there's no way a fucked up situation like theirs would be perfect. It's not how Adam would've imagined spending his life after he got out of Hell.  
  
Gabriel comes over often grumbling about Heaven and the angels, and finishes all the coffee in the house. Raphael comes over less often. There's still no fix other than killing Adam which Michael refuses to do. She still hates him, but she hopefully will come around. Eventually. Maybe. She has been glaring at him less so Adam's thinking he's growing on her.  
  
He still has bad days, and still has good days. His sense of time is still shot. He absolutely sucks at doing the budget. Nanny eventually passes away and Adam is the one to bury her, because she and Kristin never made up.  
  
But, he has Michael, even if it's not the way he wanted Michael, he has him, spectral for all but one day every two years. Here and now, he at least has _this_ , and that's enough.  
  
  


-x-x-x-

  
  
  
  
  
There is a story Gabriel tells the younger angels when teaching them about Free Will in the new era. It goes like this:  
  
Once upon a time there was a boy, and a ghost.  
  
The boy – Adam Milligan – wasn't normal any more due to various reason, but then again he'd never truly been normal to begin with. No one born into the Winchester family lineage was. He was supposed to be dead, but just like his brothers, death didn't stick to him either, and instead he'd now housed the Grace of an angel. The ghost was really the archangel Michael who lost his Grace to the boy. Adam was his Cage, and hence Michael haunted him.  
  
They had a history even before that. One that involved Revelations and prophecies and the old Apocalypse, and how they all went wrong, and spanned infinities in Hell.  
  
They were cursed.  
  
And most importantly they were in love.  
  
It was needless to say, a recipe for tragedy.  
  
They lived together. Not in some tiny nowhere corner of the world barely accessible. No, they lived in a simple old house, in a still small American town. They lived in the house Adam grew up in.  
  
There were two cups for two people, in the kitchen, too much food made daily for one living person to eat, too much of everything for one person to use. There was a room that belonged to the boy's late mother, that was as sacred as the throne room of heaven, kept untouched and preserved as years went by, even as the rest of the house showed signs of ageing and being lived in. There were books that piled up, with quickly fading paper, whose words were read out loud every afternoon. There was a roof that rattled and always seemed to need repairing. There were people who came and went into their lives. Friends, family, acquaintances, others.  
  
There were fights and there were soft words. There were days they wouldn't look, wouldn't acknowledge one another. And there were days when both pretended that they could touch could feel the other, and invaded each other's personal space, curled up around the other, as if to become one single being. There were proclamations of love, promises, post-it notes left on walls. And there were threats to leave, rock salt boundaries barring entry into rooms, and rattling and shaking furniture that accompanied raised voices which would be followed up with broken china.  
  
The days would pass as they were want to do: slow, slower, fast, fast, faster, slow-fast-slow. They all built up to a crescendo, keeping both so tightly would and driving them to the very edge.  
  
There were phantom touches. Then there were those few hours every two years were the phantom touches weren't so phantom. When the ghost would become flesh and blood until sunrise, and the boy who wasn't a boy any more but a man, took him to bed, indulged, and fell off that edge they'd drove themselves too. And then there were those few precious moment after when wrapped up in each other while waiting for morning, the man would hold the archangel a little tighter, firmer, as if it would stop him from turning into a spectre again.  
  
But it wouldn't.  
  
And the process would start all over again, repeat itself and build up until they got another few hours after another two years.  
  
There was no happy ending.  
  
But that was okay, as Adam said, because the ending was _theirs_ , one they chose.  
  
Besides they had all of the time in the world to make it a happy ending.  
  
  


~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to the AdamBang mods ladyknightanka, _bluebells, and synnerxx for understanding RL kicking me and helping me throughout the way. Thanks to my lovely artist shadownashira who put up with me, and has been the most sweetest person to work with despite my radio silence. Thanks also, to chaos_dreaming who was my last minute saviour and beta.


End file.
